Prison Architect is now available on Steam! As part of Valve’s brand new “Early Access” alpha scheme, Prison Architect and a handful of other great games currently in development can now be purchased and played via Steam. We think this makes a ton of sense - paid alpha is a fantastic business model for small indie game developers, but until now we had to completely finish the game before Steam would consider listing it. This makes sense for the big commercial games, but Indies can be in alpha for years - part of what makes indie games so exciting is the open development process with tons of major updates over a long period of time. Here at Introversion we are delighted to see Valve opening up the Steam service to Indies that are playing that game. Three cheers from Introversion!

Our promise: Everyone who has ever bought Prison Architect from us and everyone who buys from our website in future will also get the game on Steam. If you buy the game on Steam you get all the same access to our development community - the private forums, the wiki, and the bug database. Steam customers can even download the standalone builds from our website if they want. A single purchase anywhere gets you Windows, Mac OSX and (eventually) Linux versions (Steam AND standalone), you can install on as many computers as you like, and we will NEVER require you to be online to play. In the wake of recent outrageous mistreatment at the hands of some big publishers who really should know better, we think it’s important to state where we stand on that. You get everything, on every platform, whenever you want it.

Existing customers: To access your free Steam Product key, you need to find your original purchase receipt we emailed to you when you bought the game. Click on the URL in that email and you’ll find your file downloads, and your Steam Product key will be in there. Then in Steam go to “Games” and “Activate a Product on Steam”. If you have any problems with this at all please email support@introversion.co.uk and we will do our best to sort it for you.

Steam users: To activate your community account, first ensure you have an Introversion forum acccount, then grab the key you see in Steam on startup and paste it in on our registration page here:
www.prison-architect.com/register

To coincide with all this excitement, today we launched the eighth update to our Prison Architect alpha.
Download it from our website: www.prison-architect.com/builds.html(Use your forum username and password to access the builds page)

Here is our video demonstrating the changes:

We knew this alpha would be the first version that made it onto Steam, so that changed our usual process a little bit. Specifically we knew we were likely to see a large number of new players who had never seen Prison Architect before, and we wanted them to have a decent first experience. Pretty quickly we decided to hold back on any game breaking new changes that would heavily unbalance the game or confuse brand new players, and instead to focus on improving almost every system we already have. If you take a look at the change list below, you’ll find very few new features, but an incredibly long list of improvements.

We did pay a lot of attention to the feedback on the new door system that requires Guards to unlock every door. In truth we knew that alpha7 would be harder to play than any other version because of this change, but this is part of our deliberate process - we want to see how players respond to having the apple cart overturned, so to speak. Requiring a guard to open every door forces everyone to rethink their prisons on a fundamental level. We reserve the right to break everything for everyone every now and then! However in alpha8 we’ve made some changes that make the door system much more manageable.

We’ve introduced a new Staff Door which can be unlocked by any staff member or guard, reducing the amount of time required for guards to escort chefs and workmen around the place. However these doors are weak compared to jail doors - there is always a security trade off, and you shouldn’t be surprised if a gang of prisoners decide to bust out of your prison through your new back door logistics tunnel. You can also set any door to be “Locked Open”, which holds it open at all times except during lockdown - very useful as a high security emergency door which will slam shut at the click of a button, but otherwise stay out of the way. And because your workmen often get locked inside a new building whilst it is under construction you can now set entire sectors to be unlocked while your men work. Just make sure you remember to lock it up before the prisoners arrive.

There’s quite a raft of AI improvements that should make the game run much better, along with a new planning mode to help with designing new buildings to be the correct size before you start building. There’s a ton of bug fixes, and the dreaded sight of a guard trapped forever in a medical bed or a prisoner serving his term in a solitary confinement cell should be a thing of the past.

= Steam integration Prison Architect is now available from Steam (Pc & Mac) Existing customers : You have been gifted a complimentary Steam Key! Open your purchase receipt email then click on the URL and you'll find your steam product key Use this key to activate your copy of Prison Architect for Steam

= New Planning Mode Accessable from the main toolbar, use this to plan your upcoming buildings and room layouts You can draw in the usual way with the left mouse and clear with the right mouse Plans are automatically cleared once actually built by workers

= Door Lock system changes - New object: 'Staff Door', which is a locked door that can be opened by any guard OR staff member Note: Prisoners treat this as a normal door, requiring Guards to unlock in the usual way (Staff never unlock doors for prisoners - it's not in their job description, and too dangerous) (Want a Staff-ONLY door? Set the Sector type to be Staff Only in Deployment)

- Doors have two new special modes: Locked Shut or Locked Open. Click on a door to set this. Locked Shut prevents anyone using the door at any time. Locked Open keeps the door open at all times, EXCEPT during a lockdown when it slams shut

- There is a new sector setting called "Unlocked", which keeps all doors within the sector open This is useful during construction of a building, or during a fire evacuation

- Doors that are blocked when closing will no longer push the blocking object aside. They won't close fully until unblocked.

- Guards will now stick to their assigned patrols and sectors, only doing jobs within their sector This makes them much more responsive at opening doors within / bordering their sector

- Fixed: Guards will no longer be called upon to unlock wooden office doors

= AI & Behaviour Improvements - During Shower / Yard / Meal times, Prisoners will first go to the nearest room of that type, then will only use the facilities within that room. This stops prisoners in one shower running to another shower on the other side of the map

- Facilities within a Holding Cell may now only be used by prisoners living in that holding cell

- Prisoners will no longer nap during the day, instead preferring to sleep for longer at night (Requires Sleep regime)

- Workers/Chefs/Janitors etc will now attempt jobs even if there is mild danger nearby, but will still refuse if the area is very dangerous Guards will no longer refuse any job because it is too dangerous. They are paid to be brave! Jobs which are paused due to danger will be restarted quicker once the danger has passed

- Dead Firemen will now be taken to the morgue by Guards (rather than being left to rot), and fire trucks will leave without them

- Guards that are not assigned anywhere will try to hang out somewhere useful

- Fixed: Chefs will no longer bin all prepared food during Bang Up / Lockdown

= Interface improvements - The top toolbar now displays the number of available guards, prisoners, and cctv cameras when you have them - The Lockdown and Bangup buttons have been moved onto the main toolbar (placeholder graphics) - Tooltips have been added to many items in the main toolbars - The prisoner Rap sheet now displays any recent misconduct they were involved in - The graphics options screen now asks you to confirm a new resolution is acceptable, or reverts after 15 seconds

- The hunt for Stuck Entities - Fixed: Prisoners could become trapped in Solitary Confinement forever after saving and reloading - Fixed: All entities could become trapped in a Medical Bed

- The maximum number of prisoners you can receive in a day is now based on your prison size: Small = 16, Medium = 24, Large = 32. Previously it was 24 for all prisons

- New command line option: -safemode : Runs at 1024x768, windowed, with shaders disabled, and a blank new map (Steam users can run this directly from steam by selecting "Launch in SAFE MODE")

- Prisoners minor injuries will now heal while they sleep overnight

- Prisoners misconduct is now saved correctly in save games

- Administrators now have a short view range (3 squares)

- Fixed: The hardware compatability survey will no longer popup when playing the Introduction level

But how do I get rid of Firemen if I accidentally call them? Sacking them was the only way to get rid of them!! You also posted on Twitter that you would email Steam keys to everyone who bought the game.

Great changes! Love the idea of the planning mode, the door changes are very welcome (I was toying with the idea of corridors like the one shown in the video), finally the rooms the prisoners use makes sense, and finally guards won't just sit wherever their last job was.

I lol'd so hard at the phrase "recent outrageous mistreatment at the hands of some big publishers who really should know better", having just experienced this myself after buying a certain city-building game

"recent outrageous mistreatment at the hands of some big publishers who really should know better" - Felt the pain here on a cityscape game and also again when they offered a free game that did not work.

sabasNL wrote:I´ve been playing Prison Architect from a friend for some time, and I´ve been planning to buy it for a long time.When it launched on Steam, I immediatly bought it, and I just love the game.

I also really like this update, it finally takes away some frustrations I had with previous updates.

Nice work! Hope to see you on the dev pages soon, feedback is a good thing!